I found it incredibly hard to keep the rhythm of the war hymn contested by the rapid cacophony of the sapping teams. Their efforts were just barely out of sight from my vantage point next to the spiress’ entourage in the reserves. Next to me, Nora flinched ever so slightly every time one of the rams impacted the wall, rocking the foundations ever so slightly.

  She had her shoulders hunched so subtly I didn’t know if she knew she was doing it. Her flinch might have just been an instinctive response to the nearly constant noise which began three days ago during the first attempt on this wall’s defenses.

  The goblins launched two assaults on the wall between the first and now, and every time defending it got harder and our numbers thinner. Neither Ellen or I were called to reinforce the wall yet today and before the battle even begun Mika and Nora were told to conserve their mana. Which is why we’d just been sitting at the back near her entourage.

  So far today, the goblins only probed. Like the beginning moves of a duel they never fully committed. They waited to see how we’d respond before they sent another probe elsewhere on the wall. They played cat and mouse, half heartedly battering us around to see if we did something exciting.

  Distractedly, I watched as one of the smallest goblins I’d seen had his neck pierced by one of the [Brood Guard’s] stingers. The woman tore her tails upwards and with a sound like paper tearing, loud enough to be heard over all the noise, the goblin’s head tore from his shoulders. His skull only remained attached to the rest of the body thanks to some vague filaments of pale flesh.

  Like the goblin’s head, my attention ripped violently away from the scene when the stone beneath us shook and rocks dropped from the ceiling where the spires attached to the top of the tunnel. In time with the echoes of the loudest impacts I’d heard yet.

  The sound arched across the tunnel like lightning bolts and where it passed combatants on both sides fought with a new hunger. Like hunters, the goblins surged forward. No longer content to probe our defenses, they launched themselves at the aranae, who fought back like cornered tigers.

  I couldn’t see what caused the sound, but watching the aranae fight with the recklessness of the doomed told me all I needed to know. Part of the wall had finally collapsed.

  I shot a glance at the spiress who stood just outside the entrance to the central spire. Rather than alarmed, she radiated a calm so deep I could have mistaken her for stone as she ordered those around her in the aranae language. The commands weren’t hard to figure out as those not already engaged with the goblins retreated into the spires.

  “The wall is lost.” Maggie whispered. “It came sooner than I’d hoped, but you all need to prepare yourselves for a long retreat.”

  “Adventurers! Come! I have your orders.” The spiress called, an almost giddy sound to her strange accent.

  As we approached, I noticed both Gunilla and Saga had their attentions honed in on their charge, who did an excellent job of ignoring the looks.

  “The four of you are to join the fighting up here on the wall.” The spiress commanded, her monochrome eyes alight as she ordered us to die for her. “You will remain her for as long as you can hold them off.”

  Saga stepped forward to whisper shout in the spiress’ ear, Maggie drew in a harsh gasp of air, and Gunilla started to speak but Maggie rode over her.

  “The wall is breached.” Maggie declared, a fury I’d only ever seen back at Tia’s office held in check by her professionalism. “A retreat of the non-combatants begun.”

  She stepped up to the spiress and even though the aranae dwarfed her by more than a foot and a half, Maggie loomed over the younger woman. It was a small thing, but I saw Maggie glance in Gunilla’s direction ever so slightly before she spoke again.

  “By Adventurer’s Guild Law. The order to hold a lost fortification by a contractor is considered homicidal. If you insist on issuing this command, our contract is voided, a fine of double the original fee awarded to my party. And you, and any organization you belong to, will be blacklisted from Guild services.

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  “Do you insist, girl?”

  The spiress had no reaction to Maggie’s tirade, nor her insult. Not even the slightest widening of the eyes or a step back. Instead, she turned to speak with both of her advisors in her native language. During which, I couldn’t stop myself from noticing how many people were dying up on the walls and how much ground was being lost.

  The spiress broke from her conversation and turned back to us with a scowl she didn’t bother to hide.

  “Hence forth I am placing you under the sole command of my advisor Gunilla. Look to her for further commands.”

  “I am well versed in your Guild’s Laws.” Gunilla said, finally sparing her pupil from the intense heat in her eyes. “And I am not foolish enough to force you to defend any part of the wall. The four of you are to exit the wall and protect the laborers as they prepare for retreat. Kill any goblins who make it out and wait for me there. I know you have already packed, so leave now.”

  We followed the order only after a shallow nod from Maggie approved them. Within minutes, Ellen and I were set up on either side of the now sealed main gate. The only remaining exit after the wall was smoothed over. Mika and Nora stood further off to the side, Maggie hovering just behind them. The pair prepared to lend any support should it be needed.

  No goblins emerged from the wall, but the sounds of fighting grew ever louder, rising from a dim hum until I could clearly hear the shouted orders from both sides, the clash of metal, and cries of pain.

  What did pass through the gate was hundreds of injured aranae on stretchers by the smaller laborers, while teams of scholars rushed between them and fussed over patients. The laborers ferried the injured over to one of a dozen open topped wagons arranged in the center of the massive cavern behind the fort.

  By the time the spiress and her minders left the wall, the stream of injured combatants and supplies slowed to a trickle. [Brood Guard] surrounded the spiress and her entourage on all sides. The large warriors soaked in gore from head to paw. What little exposed skin they had was uniformly covered in a myriad of lacerations.

  Back straight, and head held high, the spiress passed us to descend the switch back path into the cavern and climb into her personal carriage. Which was prepared hours ago for her. Her guards fell into step beside it as it took off, uncaring for those they left behind.

  Gunilla stopped beside us, however, and together we watched in silence as her charge exited the field.

  “I’m assigning you to the moles there. You’ll be part of the rearguard. You are to report in at the first sign of the goblins’ approach.”

  Gunilla didn’t wait for us to acknowledge the order and moved to join the convoy, which hustled to leave at the sight of the spiress doing so.

  There were fifty moles, each herded behind the wagons by a team of twenty-or-so laborers with meters long switches. They were large beasts, about the size of a full-grown deer. They were also stout animals, however, compared to the graceful poise of a deer, and probably weighed six to eight hundred pounds each.

  Covered in a dense layer of short brown fur that obscured whether they even had eyes, a pair of yellow shovel-like teeth protruded out from each of their jaws. As they bounded along next to their [Herders], their sail-like ears twitched constantly and occasionally fluttered towards the vocalizations of the animals next to them.

  Ellen and I took up positions on the left side of the herd while Mika and Nora were told by one of the [Herders] to join a scholar at the front who scuttled along without issue. The pair were having some trouble keeping up with the pace being set by the wagons ahead of us, and I wondered how long they could hold out before they had to slow down.

  ~~~***~~~

  After five minutes of jogging, Maggie moved forward to take the pack she’d given back to Mika off of his back. Even before the retreat he’d taken everything out of it expect his golem, but even that was too heavy, weighing close to a hundred pounds. Even though Mika was shockingly fit for a [Mage], he wasn’t in good enough shape to run while carrying an extra hundred pounds for very long.

  Even with the reduced weight, he still wound up being the first one to need a break. He didn’t complain once, however. Instead, Mika kept slowly falling back into the herd, not being able to keep his place up at the front. Eventually one of the [Herders] stopped him and quickly lifted him onto the back of one of the moles. The animal barely reacted to the extra weight besides a few sniffs as the laborer raised Mika past its nose.

  Within ten minutes, Nora got similar treatment and raised up onto the back of the mole beside Mika’s. While I’d never admit it to anyone, the discomfort on their faces as the mole’s awkward gait threw them around satisfied a petty part of my brain that hated having to run in full armor.

  The way behind us remained clear until four miles into the retreat after the convoy reached a fork in the tunnel, when I noticed the first signs of people following us. As far as we were from the fort, all I could see was a small cluster of dots that slowly grew larger. It could have been nothing, but I decided it was better to play it safe and called up to Nora, whose mole was at the head of the pack currently.

  “Nora! The goblins are following!”

  Of course, Nora wasn’t the only one to hear me and while she turned to look at Maggie for advice, one of the warriors with us rushed to where Gunilla was walking by one of the wagons carrying the injured. At the news, Gunilla marched up and down the still moving wagon train as it turned ponderously into the right tunnel, giving orders as she went. When she finally made it back to us, she spoke first to the aranae in their native language before she focused on us.

  “Try to limit casualties amongst the herd. But above all, your priority is the lives of the laborers with you.” Gunilla turned from us as soon as she spoke the last word and marched up to the spiress’ carriage, which was slowly increasing the gap between itself and the rest of the wagon train.

  As we jogged down the tunnel, the unworked red stone surprisingly uniform, the goblins behind us grew louder and louder. At first, I could barely hear them, even though I suspected they had close to a thousand surviving goblins still. Now, however, the sounds of their footfalls rebounded off the walls of the tunnels around us like the roar of a distant waterfall.

  “What are you guys going to do with your gold once you get paid?” Nora called out, her voice hitching in time with the mole’s gait as a laborer spurred it on faster.

  “Just you wait!” Ellen called back, panting through her helmet. “When we get back to Woodsedge, I’m taking you four for a crawl through the Passion District that’ll leave you in a coma!”

  I smiled and heard Mika groan over the noise of the caravan.

  “Last time we did that Harmony wouldn’t leave me alone for six months!” He complained.

  “What’s another six then eh?” Nora called with a laugh that Ellen and I joined.

  I hadn’t known my party mates for long, but jogging beside them, laughing as we teased Mika. The violence and death about to be visited upon us faded to the background. And I couldn’t help but be thankful to the Grace Mother that she gave me the chance to leave the Emerald Ocean.